New Eglinton Garage

Text by Godfrey Mallion; with additional details by Jelo Gutierrez Cantos

See also

Eglinton Carhouse and Garage

The New Eglinton Garage, also known as Comstock Garage, located on Comstock Road, between Pharmacy Avenue and Warden Avenue, is built on the site of the Scarborough Van Assembly plant. The garage opened on March 31, 2002 (replacing Danforth and Old Eglinton Garage —jb).

The History of the Golden Mile

In the 1940s, 250 acres (100 ha) was acquired by the Government of Canada to build munitions plants for Canada’s involvement in World War II. In 1941, the General Engineering Company of Ontario (GECO) a massive munitions plant was constructed covering the area southeast of Eglinton and Warden. The facility was located in the area, which was then far from the city, to protect against accidental detonations. At its peak, 5,300 people worked at the plant and 256,567,485 munitions were produced over the course of the war. Following the war, under the leadership of Scarborough reeve, Oliver E. Crockford, the area and 14 buildings were purchased from the Government of Canada by the Township of Scarborough. The township built municipal offices and a library along Eglinton and sold the rest to private industry to develop the area as “The Golden Mile”, patterned after the Golden Mile in London, England.

In the 1950s and 1960s, numerous factories producing mostly consumer goods operated along the Golden Mile.

Frigidaire and The Van Assembly

In 1952, General Motors built a head office and factory for its Frigidaire division on 34 hectares in the “Golden Mile”, Eglinton Avenue’s industrial park, and began assembling home appliances and refrigerators for Canada’s post-war consumers. As the area’s largest industrial development when it opened, the plant became one of Scarborough’s primary employers. The plant then started as an automotive components manufacturing plant in 1968 for Delco, a General Motors subsidiary, and by 1974, it had become a van assembly plant. At its peak, the factory produced its one-millionth van in 1986.

Around Thanksgiving of 1989, General Motors then announced that they would wind down operations of the Scarborough Van Assembly in Scarborough, and awarding the van contract to Flint Truck Assembly. The last van rolled off the Scarborough line on May 6, 1993. Production was then transferred to Flint Truck Assembly and the process of dismantling the plant began. After three years at Flint, the van division moved to Wentzville Assembly in Missouri, in July 1996 and the building was subsequently demolished with most of the site became Eglinton Town Centre retail space and a Cineplex Odeon theatre was built and opened in 2000. The southern end of the property was purchased by the Toronto Transit Commission in 1998.

The New garage and construction

As Danforth and Eglinton Garages were reaching its eighth decade, the Commission had completed the bus garage study carried out in 1995 recommended the construction of a new bus garage. At its meeting of November 18, 1997, the Commission approved total funding for the project in the amount of $36.2 million. On April 29, 1998, the City of Toronto Council approved the TTC’s 1998-2002 Capital Program which included funds in the amount of $36.2 million for this project. On July 21, 1998, the Commission purchased the southern end of the former Van Assembly site on Comstock Road and Lebovic Drive.

Construction of the $40.8 million dollar facility began in December 1998 and was completed in 2001, With the opening of the new Comstock Garage on March 31, 2002, the Danforth and Eglinton Garages have been decommissioned.

Garage Features

The brand new Eglinton bus garage features 2 wash racks, 2 fueling stations, a UWE otdoor bus storage with overhead distribution heating system, 14 40-foot repair hoists, and 4 inspection pit stations. Since all the UWE buses have retired, this garage features zero-emissions electric bus recharging.

Originally, 279 buses were GMC - T6H5307N, MCI - TC 40102N, OBI - ORION V, and NFLYER LF vehicles. Currently, the garage operates the majority fleet of 241 NOVA LFS 40102, 10 BYD K9M, 15 NFLYER XE40 and 12 NOVA LFSe+ BEV 40102 buses.

Routes

As of June 22, 2025, New Eglinton Division operates these routes:

Eglinton (Comstock) Garage Image Archive

	A sign at the front of the property. Photo on March 12, 2012 by Jelo Gutierrez-Cantos.
	The main building of New Eglinton garage. Photo courtesy Mike's Transit Shop
	The repair bays of New Eglinton garage. Photo courtesy Mike's Transit Shop.
	The UWE bus storage area at New Eglinton garage. UWE is the name of the Swedish company that supplied the outdoor storage system. Photo courtesy Mike's Transit Shop.
	A front view of the UWE Bays. Photo taken on March 12, 2012 by Jelo Gutierrez-Cantos.
	Another view of the UWE bays. Photo taken on March 12, 2012 by Jelo Gutierrez-Cantos.
	The maintenance bays at Eglinton garage. Photo taken on March 12, 2012 by Jelo Gutierrez-Cantos.